


A Touch of Gold

by gentleau (iwanna_seeyou_undoit)



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Developing Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Tender Sex, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:27:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26942887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwanna_seeyou_undoit/pseuds/gentleau
Summary: Pierre wants to tell Daniil to stop being so modest, to look in the mirror and recognise his own talent. It’s what Dany had said to him, after his Red Bull seat fell out from under him. ‘You have to believe in yourself and know you are worthy outside of what they say about you.’My notes when I wrote this were: Alpha Tauri as family, Toro Rosso Drivers Support Group, touching greatness, being your best and what that means
Relationships: Pierre Gasly/Daniil Kvyat
Comments: 19
Kudos: 75





	A Touch of Gold

It’s like this. Pierre has never really been able to relax. He’s always working, striving, pushing towards that end goal, the pinnacle, the dream of every boy who’s ever looked at a car and thought he’d like the opportunity to push himself to his limit.

He works hard.

Not as hard as some of the guys in the paddock. He’s not so cut-throat career motivated as to push everyone away, to focus inward on himself and himself alone, to the exclusion of interpersonal relationships. Even if he wanted to (and teenage Pierre had considered it several times) he doesn’t think he could.

He needs it. He needs that spark of making a friend laugh, of making small talk with vague acquaintances, of knowing that even if he has to return to an empty hotel room at the end of a long day, he’ll be surrounded by people again in the morning.

It’s that urge to please, to be liked, to have an amicable relationship with as many people as possible that makes it difficult for him to shut off. He’s got so many expectations riding on his shoulders – his parents’, his own, his nation’s. More recently, Anthoine’s.

When he’s surrounded by people he always has to be On. He has to Perform.

It’s not like he wants to be lazy. In the off-season he just about loses his mind without something to do. He sits still for two days and then he’s up and onto the next thing. The next challenge. The next track to memorise, to improve, a game of Fifa he needs to beat his score on…

It never stops.

It’s not being a professional athlete.

Sebastian is one of the most  _ professional _ professional athletes in the paddock and when he’s not on track he might as well not exist. He drops off the face of the earth because he knows how to stop.

Even Lewis. Who, to the outside eye, is the busiest of them all. He’s spinning so many plates and though he makes it look easy, Pierre knows it’s not. But he enjoys it, so so clearly. 

Sebastian and Lewis – polar opposites yet with the same net outcome. Time away from the track, time to stop thinking about being a driver, about the milestones yet to reach, the expectations to be met…

Pierre tries not to think that at least they’ve met milestones. That maybe that’s what’s wrong: if he had the titles they had, hell, even if he just had a  _ race win _ , maybe he could find a side project he starts on his own instead of a collaboration his manager sets up for him.

There’s something inside him, he thinks, that won’t let him rest. The same thing pushing him to work every day, to do his best, be his best, even if (he’s coming to terms with it, now) even if he’ll never be The Best. 

It’s the nature of it, isn’t it? There’s twenty of them. Twenty drivers. Not all twenty can be the best. 

Not all twenty can even get close to touching the best. It’s fine like that. 

It’s not like Pierre is alone in this. When you’re racing again Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, a little inferiority complex is natural.

Not even just that, the every day of getting on track and knowing that unless something drastic happens, there’s no way you’re even touching that forty second window to the top two. 

He’s not even alone in his demotion. 

He’d been sent back to Toro Rosso, embarrassed and feeling like the most hard done by person in Formula 1. 

And then someone, a new member of the team, someone who’d arrived while Pierre was at Red Bull, had mentioned that Daniil was having his lunch in the cafeteria and that they were pretty sure he had a free afternoon, and he’d be able to show Pierre the changes he needed to know. 

_ He’ll be able to commiserate _ , had gone unspoken. 

He’d been ashamed - to have thought that in this he was unique. A bitter little part of him had resented Danill, just a bit. If Pierre couldn’t make it to the top of the table, rub wheels with the heavy hitters, then why couldn’t his disappointment, his shame, be his. Just like there can only be one winner, only one person can come dead last. 

It seems like that’s not something Pierre gets to have, either. 

It’s ridiculous thinking. Something that stuck between his ears for a few moments and then rattled free, replaced with shame of a different kind. He’d been so caught up feeling sorry for himself he hadn’t remembered Daniil had been through the exact same thing. 

Daniil is helpful. Of course he is. He finishes his lunch in a few bites, then leads Pierre on a tour of the factory that they both know is entirely superfluous. Other than the people in the hallways, nothing has changed. 

It’s a tour, yes, just not of the building. 

It’s a tour of the turmoil they’re both familiar with. A party trick where they show off their unique scars only to discover they’re a double act. A more depressing version of I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. 

-

It’s nice, actually, being back alongside Daniil. 

He’s easy going, for all he seems a bit stern. 

For all that he’s only two years older than Pierre, it might as well be a lifetime. 

He carries himself with a poise and an assurance that Pierre can’t imagine. He’s not shy, himself. Wouldn’t really have been able to pull himself to where he is if there wasn’t a fighting spirit in him, a desire to be seen, to put himself on display. 

But he’s more... tentative, perhaps is the word, than Daniil. Daniil approaches it with a hard headed determination, a steel and a mettle that they all have a part of but he has a lot of. He jokes around, sure, but under it all is the clear-eyed focus of a missile. 

That word has been used to hurt Daniil, to drag his name through the grit of the track. Like they try to do every time a driver slips up. Pierre doesn’t use it to hurt. He admires it. 

Pierre’s brand of focus comes with a sort of buzzing energy. He’s bouncy and he smiles and he enjoys every second he’s at the track because he knows (for so many, too many, reasons) it could be his last. 

He is no less determined, no less focused than Daniil, it’s just it comes in a different package. 

It all comes back to being able to switch off, he thinks. 

Daniil’s been teaching himself to play the guitar. He takes a shiny acoustic with him everywhere they go. Pierre feels like Dany’s progression is his, a little bit. The walls between their driver’s rooms are thin. He’s heard him move from tentative, tinny attempts at riffs through to slow but steady songs. 

He considers asking Daniil to show him how. He thinks he would agree. He’s always agreeable with Pierre, gentle and accommodating - happy to help him, teach him, sit in the silence of an unused meeting room with a pot of terrible coffee and talk about how, really, a demotion doesn’t mean they are lesser drivers.

-

The quarantine period gives Pierre time to learn to unwind. 

He doesn’t have a choice. He’s stuck in a hotel room in Dubai. They’ve been kind enough to set aside an empty room for him to set up his weights, some resistance bands. He’s got a few PlayStation games - mainly Fifa, the new F1 game. But his simulator is at home, in Europe. If he wants to keep his sanity he has to find something else to do with himself. 

He and Dany FaceTime a lot. 

Pierre mainly sits on the balcony of his room and skites about the view, or in the too-big-too-deep sofa in his room. Dany made it back to his apartment in Monaco. He says they’re allowed to go for a run, for an hour, in the morning. Dany’s learning to play the electric guitar. 

At first, he’s shy, reticent. Downplays his ability, says he’s only just started and his neighbours are always home so he doesn’t want to disturb them playing all the time. 

“No way I’m ready for an audience,” he argues. 

Pierre shrugs, at first. Lets him away with it. 

It’s an odd quirk Formula 1 drivers have, he’s noticed. Not all of them, of course, but a lot. They’re uber talented at what they do, and if they can’t do other things to the same level of brilliance it’s like they’re failing. 

It’s most noticeable in Daniil. Well, it is for Pierre, anyway. 

So he lets him skirt the issue of showing Pierre his skills and then one day, Pierre is overheated, overtired, and over spending all his time in the weights room. 

“Come on, Dany. Don’t be ridiculous. What do you think I’m going to do? I won’t make fun of you. We can even turn off the video so there’s no way I can prove it’s you playing.” He raises the hand not holding his phone in front of his face, holds it like he’s praying one-handed. 

Daniil’s face softens in stages. He sighs. “You are worse than a child.” But he agrees to play for him, just a short little riff - more picking than anything else, though Pierre doesn’t know enough to call him out on it. It’s not a song, not what Pierre was angling for, but he puts his phone down on his knee when Dany is finished so he can use both hands to clap. 

“Was nice!” He praises. Enjoys watching the quiet satisfied smile spread across his teammate’s face. 

“You are only saying that so I keep entertaining you, aren’t you!” Daniil is grinning, his teeth taking up most of the screen. If quarantine is teaching Pierre anything it’s that Daniil is terrible at using technology like someone in his mid-twenties. He holds his phone like Pierre’s mother - either too far away - down under his chin at a terrible angle, or right in front of his face - a near-sighted bat. 

It makes Pierre giggle, to think of Daniil as a bat. A long-faced little thing with wings and a gangly sort of poise. 

Daniil notices his mirth, but doesn’t ask. Most of the time if something is funny enough to share, Pierre will share it. Otherwise… 

“What about you?” Dany asks. “What have you been learning?” 

The truth is, Pierre hasn’t been doing a lot. He remembered how much he liked watching his mother bake when he was a child, so he’d made a couple of loaves of bread. But he still has to be track fit, regardless of how long he’s stuck in this hotel room. There’s only so much bread he and Pyry can eat. 

He’s got a little leather bound notebook he writes in sometimes. He’s had it for a while but never had much time to use it. He’s been writing a bit of… He wouldn’t call it poetry, but he doesn’t know what else it is. 

Other than that… Not a lot. 

“I’m thinking now might be a good time to understand UFC?” Pierre has heard Dany and Daniel talk about it in the paddock. They both get super into it, all energetic and enthusiastic, bouncy and shouty. Pierre doesn’t think he’ll get quite as invested in cage fighting as the two of them seem to be, but… it’s nice to have more in common with your teammate than just the car you drive. 

Dany’s face lights up. “I can teach you!” 

“If you want to!” Pierre replies, equally excited. He hadn’t expected Dany to offer - had been thinking more along the lines of chatting to Dany about it once he’d read up on the basics - but this is even better. 

There’s something about Daniil, about his easy-going nature, the smile that so many people seem surprised to see, the way he laughs with Pierre, laughs with everyone in the team, and yet the gravity with which he takes his on-track performance. Pierre has seen him cry, after a crash he thinks he could have avoided.

Daniil had seen him see him and he hadn’t reacted. He’d just reached up to dry his eyes, the sleeves of his fireproofs pulled down over his hands, looking young and alone. Pierre had nodded, offered him a small, tentative smile, and received a smile in return. 

“You know they have petit fours in the hospitality?” Daniil had asked, his voice a little rough. 

“No way?” Pierre had waited until Dany was on his feet and then led them both towards the food. They’d shared a coffee and a sweet snack and neither of them ever acknowledged the moment before ever again. 

It made their relationship stronger, for sure. Before that, they’d been amicable teammates. After that, they were something much closer to friends. 

Nothing like Max and Daniel, or Esteban and Lance, but something. 

Daniil kept turning up where Pierre was. If he was warming up outside his driver’s room, Daniil would join him more often than not. If he was in an interview in the paddock, Daniil would be somewhere in the background. On their days off, Daniil would text him - just little, insignificant things. Usually song recommendations. Sometimes terrible jokes. 

For Daniil to offer to teach Pierre about UFC - to have him introduce him to the world Daniil inhabits without Pierre - is thrilling. He’s hardly going to say no. 

-

They grow closer. Of course they do. There’s only so much distance they can maintain when they’re calling each other across time zones, watching men raise the blood from one another. 

Pierre still has difficulty seeing through the violence of it. Dany can look at a broken nose and see the style behind it, the technique, every step - unchoreographed but no less a dance. It’s another difference between them - Dany’s ability to see the true intention of something, strip away the emotion on the surface to something deeper. 

Pierre envies that. He’s emotional in the opposite direction. While Daniil’s heart is kept somewhere deep and gilded, somewhere protected and barricaded that opens when it makes sense, Pierre keeps his on display, guarded with a lock but easy to pick. 

“You look uncomfortable.” Daniil is watchful. His stoicism lends itself to a man who, in another life, Pierre is sure could have been a lookout. The eyes atop a castle. An early warning sign. 

“It’s fine,” Pierre insists. “I just will get used to it.” 

Dany laughs. “You don’t have to get used to it. We can do something else.” 

They’re barely halfway through the fight.

“I don’t… We don’t have to. What are you thinking of?” 

Daniil is always so good at accommodating Pierre. It’s only right he does the same.

“Well,” Dany starts, and he’s shy. Pierre isn’t used to seeing it from this close. Dany is usually more careful about hiding it. “I learned a new song…” 

Pierre lights up. He doesn’t mind watching Daniil watch the fight - because, if he’s being honest, he’d rather watch his pale face and focused eyes than the tanned, bloodied skin of the men on TV - but when faced with the choice… 

“You’re going to play for me?” He doesn’t bother to disguise his excitement. It’s past midnight for both of them. They’re past hiding at this point. 

-

Pierre maybe shows his hand a little too strongly in the interview they do with Sky. Natalie and Simon both ask Daniil to show off what he’s been learning on the guitar and Pierre jumps at the opportunity to sing Dany’s praises. 

When Dany tries to sneak out of it, humble and talking himself down, Pierre tells them he was already good at the acoustic guitar last year. He doesn’t mention the private concerts Daniil has given him. 

“He brings his guitar to the track,” Pierre tells them as Daniil sets up. 

“Not always!” Dany interjects. 

“Not  _ always _ ,” Pierre concedes. It feels like conversations with his parents - him listening to them bicker amongst themselves, throwing facts backwards and forwards until they settle on an acceptable version of the same story. 

He ignores the twist in his stomach and tells Dany the camera is at an angle no one wants to see from. (He maybe wants to see that angle. He doesn’t want to see that angle in an interview, though.) 

“Daniil is by far the best singer,” Pierre says when Natalie suggests they pull together a band. 

“No, no, I don’t think so.” 

Pierre wants to tell Daniil to stop being so modest, to look in the mirror and recognise his own talent. It’s what Dany had said to him, after his Red Bull seat fell out from under him.  _ ‘You have to believe in yourself and know you are worthy outside of what they say about you.’ _

“You always have the best idea for the songs. You choose the songs always,” Dany continues, throwing the compliment back at Pierre and all he can do is laugh. 

Dany texts him after the interview.

**I liked your jumper. Nice color.**

Pierre texts him back a joke about the tracksuit Dany was wearing. He’d already joked that his haircut made him look like a Russian mafioso. The F1 branded athletic wear only added to the look.

-

When they’re allowed to return to the paddock it isn’t awkward. They don’t hug when they first see each other because they aren’t allowed to, and it’s a nice excuse. Pierre thinks if it had been an option his step would have stuttered while he was leaning halfway into Daniil and he would have ruined it all. 

He bumps Dany’s fist, instead. Grins at him when Dany responds with a boxing stance, feigns sending a right hook into Pierre’s shoulder. 

They have fun. It’s nice, being back on track after so long. It makes it all the more special. The two of them are already more aware than most of how easily it can all be taken away from them, but the long quarantine away from their seats made it hit home in a different way.

The atmosphere in the Alpha Tauri garage is almost electric, now, in a way Pierre doesn’t remember it being. Everyone has come together, glad to be reunited, glad to be rubbing shoulders and back working in close quarters. Even when they’re staring down a double header, he doesn’t hear complaints. 

And he and Daniil have little to complain about, either. They’re both putting in consistently good performances. They end their weekends, more often than not, smiling. Pierre can tell, even under Daniil’s mask, how big his teeth are, how white. He thinks of Daniil as a wolf, sometimes. Not the sort that wears his grandmother’s clothes and gains his trust only to betray him, but the she-wolf from Roman mythology. 

Pierre is realistic. If he’s either of the wolf-raised twins, he’s not Romulus. He won’t be giving his name to any cities. That’s more Charles’ domain than his. But he’s been picked up by Daniil, given a new lease on life. 

It’s not that Dany raised him, but he did do something to elevate Pierre’s spirits, to keep him going. He’s like a generator. Not Pierre’s main source of power, but something supplemental, something to draw on if he needs to. 

-

Pierre’s win at Monza belongs to all of them. It’s the redemption arc, not just of Pierre, but of Alpha Tauri. He doesn’t know who is more excited - himself, or his team. 

It takes a long time to sink in. 

He sits in his driver’s room, after the podium, and he answers the questions, he films the video the team ask him to, he smiles and he cries and he calls his parents, he calls his friends, he sits in silence and stares at the trophy (his trophy) something he can finally hold up and say  _ look. I made it. Look, I am worthy.  _

Daniil comes to congratulate him, a second time, without the cameras. He says things about how no one deserves it more, that he’s happy it’s Pierre, if it had to be anyone, he’s happy it’s him. And Pierre sees the genuine light in his eyes, that the thrilled feeling zipping through the garage has got to Daniil, too. 

But Pierre wants him to know it’s a team effort. Even now, when it’s  _ his  _ moment,  _ his  _ win, the thing he has been pushing towards his entire life, even now he needs to include Daniil. 

“Hey, honestly mate,” he starts, then shakes his head. “Dany, this is for you, as well. Without you I don’t know. I would have burned out, probably. Or lost faith. Everyday, when I go out on the track, I’m driving with you as well.” 

He means physically, but also mentally, emotionally. Dany’s words, that advice to know your worth, to take it to heart and to push with the power of self-belief behind you, they pushed him around the track just as much as the desire to outpace his teammate.

Daniil is just staring at him, and Pierre knows that look. He’s stunned, a little bit. Lost for words. Pierre had faced the same reaction when he told Daniil exactly how much he liked his guitar playing. 

He goes on. “So really, it’s your win as well.”

“No, Pierre, stop.” Daniil is shaking his head. “This is your win, don’t be ridiculous. I’m not bitter about it. You won, you deserved to win. I’m still racing, I feel fine.” 

They’re not empty words. He is being honest.

The weight of everything they share between them is heavy in the room. Pierre thinks about Brendon, the way that no matter what’s happened to Pierre and to Dany, at least they still have their seats. 

“We should start a support club, no?” He laughs. “Toro Rosso Anonymous.” 

“You can be our chairperson,” Daniil agrees. 

\- 

It happens easily. Naturally. 

One minute Pierre is sitting in his hotel room, passing a bowl of sugar across the table to Daniil and sipping his coffee, and the next he’s standing between his thighs, staring down at him, his wonderful head clasped between his hands. 

Daniil’s haircut has finally grown out. Pierre can feel the soft prickle of it between his fingers. He strokes his thumbs over the curves of Dany’s ears and Danill responds by folding his hands, slowly, gently, reverently, around Pierre’s hips. 

“You won,” he whispers, staring up at Pierre for once. It’s incredible, the feeling of being larger than him. The idea that it’s up to Pierre, now, to protect Daniil. 

There’s no space but Pierre steps closer, the front of his thighs hit Daniil’s chair. 

Daniil’s pinky finger slips between Pierre’s shirt and his jeans, his hands cold. Pierre shivers and ducks down to press his nose to the crown of Daniil’s head. 

“Would you like to go to bed?” 

He feels immeasurably lucky when Daniil nods, hums low and deep in his throat. He steps back just enough to let Dany stand up. He slips his hand into Dany’s, his palm small and encompassed inside Daniil’s. He has thought about this a lot. 

When Daniil ducks down, in the middle of the hotel room, to kiss Pierre, he stretches up to meet him. 

He doesn’t notice the time it takes the kiss to turn searching. He doesn’t notice the gap between sucking Daniil’s tongue into his mouth and being lowered backward onto the bed. Daniil is wearing a tracksuit again. Pierre slides his hands between his trousers and his underwear and pulls at the same time Daniil goes for the button on Pierre’s jeans. 

They’re naked between one breath and the next, it seems, though Pierre knows it’s not true. His heart is racing and Daniil’s palms are still cold but Pierre is so so warm. He arches his chest up to meet Daniil’s. His nipples are hard. Pierre contorts his neck to reach them, lays one, two kisses against Daniil’s chest. 

He feels a hand on the top of his head, keeping him there, steadying him. Daniil strokes his hands down Pierre’s sides. It feels almost like he’s soothing a wild animal, cooling and calming Pierre, keeping him steady and stable. Just like he has always done. 

He almost forgets, breathing in Daniil’s aftershave, that they’re naked. It’s the weightlessness of no expectations, the lightness of knowing that they’re existing here to make each other happy, to hold each other safe and secure, and no more. 

It takes one small adjustment, one shift of Pierre’s hips and then Daniil’s hand is wrapped soft and light around his dick. He sucks in a deep breath, lets it out against Daniil’s neck. 

“Fuck,” he laughs into the thick air between them. Daniil passes his laugh back to him. 

“Are you okay?” He asks, smiling but still wanting to check. 

“Yeah, yes, okay.” Pierre searches for his mouth, feeling overwhelmed to the point of blindness. Daniil touches their lips together, and the way Pierre moves in response makes his teeth hit against his bottom lip. Pierre gasps, fits their mouths together more firmly. 

Daniil’s hand tightens around his dick, he sweeps his thumb over the head and grins against Pierre’s mouth when he finds him wet. 

“I don’t… I am probably not very good, but would you like it if I--” 

Anything Daniil does would be good, Pierre is certain of it. He’s nodding, choking out a litany of consent before Daniil can even finish speaking. 

“Yeah,” Daniil agrees. He kisses slowly down Pierre’s chest, his hands never leaving his sides. Pierre feels simultaneously tiny and enormous. He is a giant, a titan on top of the podium at the same time as he is swallowed by the confetti.

Daniil bites at the soft stretch of skin just under his belly button. 

Pierre is sure that other people have felt sex this tender but he’s having difficulty imaginging anyone feeling anything even close to this. 

Surely this must be something made for him, alone, to experience. A touch of greatness just for them. 

“Okay,” Daniil whispers against Pierre’s hipbone and then his mouth is wet and warm and wholly wonderful against his thighs. Daniil’s hair brushes the underside of Pierre’s balls and he is quite sure that he could sink into the sheets of the hotel bed and never return. 

He spreads his thighs around Daniil’s shoulders, notes in the back of his head how broad he is, how wide and strong and capable. He can’t give much thought to the way Daniil’s hands have curled themselves around his hips once again, pulling him up and in. If he does, he’d have to think about the way there’s only a small part of his waist not covered by Daniil’s fingers, and the thought of filling Dany’s palms threatens to send Pierre into a tailspin he won’t recover from. 

Daniil’s mouth is tentative at first. He kisses the crown of Pierre’s dick like he’s greeting it. He runs his nose along the length of it, starting at the tip and ending back at Pierre’s belly where he presses another soft kiss. 

When he covers his teeth with his lips and sucks Pierre down, it’s like nothing Pierre has felt before. 

Daniil isn’t masterful. In technical terms, it isn’t the best blowjob Pierre will ever receive. But he sees the dedication in the slant of Daniil’s forehead, in the way his eyelashes are barely visible against his cheeks, in the way his hands still haven’t left Pierre’s hips. 

When Pierre comes, he places one hand in the hair at the back of Daniil’s head and one hand on his bare shoulder. He pulls Dany up to his mouth and reaches between his legs, kisses him through his own orgasm and stays there, afterwards. 

They settle into the bed, Daniil a warm, quite useless weight next to Pierre. Pierre, for his part, is pretty useless, too. 

“You won,” he whispers into Dany’s hair, jokingly throwing his words from earlier back at him. Dany hums in his throat, agreeing. He slings one bare thigh over Pierre and kisses his collarbone. 

They fall asleep like that, and in the morning Pierre wakes Daniil up with a coffee and a kiss that is shy but not nervous. Daniil accepts both, and more.


End file.
